dailyprayer

Liturgically speaking, Holy Saturday is the quietest day of the year – the time between Jesus’ death, and his resurrection which takes place at the Easter Vigil, technically Easter Sunday. Holy Saturday has always seemed to be such a quiet day in the midst of a very busy week – especially when I try to put myself into the shoes of the apostles, who would have distinctly felt the emptiness and loneliness of Jesus’ death most profoundly. The following is the text of an ancient homily from Holy Saturday as found in the Liturgy of the Hours – and is one of the most beautiful explanations I’ve found for the silence of this day:

What is happening? Today there is a great silence over the earth, a great silence, and stillness, a great silence because the King sleeps; the earth was in terror and was still, because God slept in the flesh and raised up those who were sleeping from the ages. God has died in the flesh, and the underworld has trembled.

The third part of our Bible Study on the Gospel of John focuses on the beginnings of the Lord’s ministry. Here we see that Jesus’ first priority is to gather followers around Himself, as He begins His mission of redemption and the establishment of His Church. These first disciples will go on to become Apostles, the ones who’ll hear every teaching, witness every miracle, and catch the little lessons that will come from being near Jesus on a daily basis. It will be there responsibility to spread the Good News after Jesus has died, risen, and ascended to the Father. [Read more…] about Unfolding John 1:35-51 (Calling of the first disciples)

I recently heard a theologian suggest that eternity (Heaven) depends to a certain degree on how willing you are to pray: if you can’t carve a small space out for God in this life, how can you expect that either of you will want to spend eternity together? God has always been the perfect gentleman – at His first coming He was born in a quiet, hidden way, and was known in His infancy only to those who sought Him with sincere hearts: shepherds, wise men, and a handful of holy individuals who were watching for him from the temple. To everyone else, he was just another baby, just another child. As St. John says, there is for each of us the possibility that Christ might be so much more:

“But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.” -1 John 1:12-13

We all struggle with prayer. There are moments where we feel more or less devoted – but this is, more often than not, because of how invested we are in a thing we are asking for or hoping for than because of what we hear or how God meets us in our prayer. Many times it seems like we are talking to ourselves or to an empty sky because we don’t hear anything back – but the response isn’t the point. We ought to pray because prayer opens us up to God – it disposes us, should He wish to speak, to hearing what He has to say. Prayer helps us discover the purpose of our lives, peace in the midst of chaos, and the ability to love others in ways we couldn’t do ourselves.

The world has been captivated by Pope Francis – the joy and kindness which he radiates in all that he does, whether it be his morning Masses or the gifts he bought for the poor of Rome. Time even named him “Person of the Year” in 2013! The thing is that Pope Francis’ secret is simple: his joy is simply the joy of living in relationship with Christ – a relationship that is founded in daily prayer.